Women in combat

ON WOMEN IN COMBAT

Published 5:54 pm, Thursday, January 24, 2013

The Pentagon's decision to officially allow women in combat will have limited practical effect in modern warfare. The fact is, many women are operating in harm's way; more than 130 have been killed and more than 800 have been wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the repeal of the 1994 ban is consequential in important ways. It will clear the way for women to serve in myriad front-line jobs to which they have been excluded.

Perhaps most significantly of all, the formal recognition of women in combat roles will be critical to their advancement in the ranks. Experience in combat is a highly regarded asset for those seeking a promotion in the armed services.

While Congress has the power to overrule the policy change, Thursday's announcement was met with an air of bipartisan acceptance of its inevitability. The relatively muted outcry came from groups such as the Family Research Council, which called it "another social experiment."

But it's important to note that the prod for the change came from the highest levels of the military itself. The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a Jan. 9 letter that the chiefs unanimously agreed that the time had arrived to "rescind the direct combat exclusion rule for women and to eliminate all unnecessary gender-based barriers to service."

With the combat mission in Afghanistan scheduled to end next year, this nation is more than ready for an era of peace after a decade of war. But the need for preparedness never ceases, and that requires attracting and retaining the right people for the right positions.

The lifting of an archaic policy of gender bias advances that national-security objective.